Did you know that all educational institutions require External Quality Assurance and in hand require an EQA. The role of an EQA is to assess that all training providers falling within their remit are meeting the required standards and compliance that the Awarding Body has set for them.
Are you already working in education and want to know what you need to become an EQA?
Firstly, let’s look at the key responsibilities and roles of an EQA. An EQA’s role is vital in ensuring all centres internal processes meet standards by conducting monitoring visits and learner portfolio sampling, but also act as a main point of contact between a centre and its awarding body. Providing support, advice and expertise to a centres IQA’s and assessors.
The big question: What qualifications do I need to become an EQA?
An EQA’s job is to support and review the work of assessors and IQA’s, therefore you will be required to have knowledge and experience with internal quality assurance processes. Our Focus Awards Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practices and others alike, is the first step to gain the necessary knowledge and skills regarding the principles and practices of internally assuring the quality of assessments.
This qualification will cover the vital theory work required to be a successful IQA including learning the functions, principles, concepts and roles of an internal quality assurer, as well as gaining knowledge on the appropriate criteria for judging the quality of the assessment process and how to provide feedback, support and advice for assessors.
You will also gain essential experience through the requirement to use your theory-based knowledge in practice. This will include undertaking internal quality assurance activities in relation to a learner portfolio and producing evidence of such. This will include, but not limited to, evaluating assessor expertise, ensuring assessment methods are fair, valid and reliable. As well as providing assessors with feedback and support that can help them with professional development and how to improve the quality of assessments.
Gaining your Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practices will allow you to progress onto completing your Level 4 Award in the External Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice. This qualification will help you to gain the knowledge and experience on how to maintain the quality of assessment from outside an organisation.
You will cover principles of external quality assurance, such as the function of external
quality assurance and the role of an external quality assurer. It will give you the understanding on how to plan external quality assurance of assessment and externally evaluate the internal quality assurance of assessment.
You will also have the opportunity to carry out EQA activities to demonstrate your theoretical knowledge in practice in the form of conducting remote and face-to-face EQA visits.
Alongside these qualifications and your specific subject knowledge, you will be required to have important transferrable skills such as great attention to detail, problem solving abilities and a commitment to improving standards and maintaining the credibility of qualifications.
So why do people take the steps to become an EQA?
This qualification can vastly broaden your career opportunities and expand your experience working with IQA’s and assessors. Being an EQA can allow you to be in a rewarding, critical and influential role that allows you to progress in your profession and support centres and assessors in raising standards. This influential role also provides you with a great variety of experiences including getting the chance to meet lots of different people from a range of organisations.
At Focus Awards, we asked some of our EQAs how they feel about their current role with us, Simon Dutson our EQA for Sports, Leisure and Recreation shared;
“I really enjoy supporting our current centres and watching them grow alongside Focus Awards. Although it can be challenging at times, I truly appreciate seeing the success of centres and their learners. I also enjoy getting out and seeing centres face to face to watch how they work and also sharing best practice”.
For further information relating to our External Quality Assurance of assessment qualifications, you can locate this on our website.
https://focusawards.org.uk/qualification/
You can also contact us on 0333 3447 388 or email us at info@focusawards.org.uk
